The Highway to Europe - Inside A Global Drug Collaboration

OCCRP reviewed the sales of 30 planes by Lance Zane Ricotta’s companies since 2014, and found evidence that 11 of them were seized, investigated, or found abroad in suspected or confirmed drug cases. Ricotta denied liability for how the aircraft were used, and experts said a loophole in U.S. plane registration rules makes it difficult to trace the real owners.

Official statistics on busts of drug shipments originating in Colombia — the world’s largest cocaine producer by far — are scattershot and hard to find. A leak of prosecutor’s office documents helped reporters fill in some gaps.

Leaked documents provide a rare window into a little-known program in which U.S. and other foreign law enforcement agencies work with Colombian counterparts to obtain and ship large quantities of cocaine around the world as part of efforts to infiltrate trafficking gangs.